Win–loss record 25–27 Role Baseball player Name Harry Eisenstat | Strikeouts 157 Earned run average 3.89 | |
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Died March 21, 2003, Beachwood, Ohio, United States | ||
Education James Madison High School | ||
Harry Eisenstat (October 10, 1915 – March 21, 2003) was a Major League Baseball (MLB) player who played from 1935 to 1942.
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Early life
He was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended James Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, where, in 2008, he was inducted into its prestigious Wall of Distinction.
Career
He pitched for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Detroit Tigers, and Cleveland Indians. Eisenstat was 19 years old when he broke into the big leagues on May 19, 1935, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In his Major League debut, he gave up 5 runs over two-and-two-thirds innings in a 9-6 loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates. On October 4, 1937, he was granted free agency and signed with the Detroit Tigers.
He is best known for, while pitching for the Detroit Tigers in the last game of the 1938 season, beating Bob Feller of the Cleveland Indians 4-1 despite Feller setting the Major League record for most strikeouts in a game (18). In that game, Eisenstat took a no-hitter into the 8th inning. Earlier that season, he won both ends of a doubleheader when he pitched nine innings of shutout ball over both games while teammate Hank Greenberg hit three home runs, causing their Tigers Manager, Mickey Cochrane, to warn the two of them to stay in their rooms that night because "the Jews in Detroit are going crazy."
The next season, Eisenstat was traded to the Cleveland Indians for future Hall-of-Famer outfielder Earl Averill where he finished his professional baseball career.
Due to World War II, he enlisted in the Army in 1942, ending his career in the MLB. Through 2010, he was 9th all-time in career ERA (3.80; directly behind Harry Feldman) among Jewish MLB players.
After the war, he moved to Shaker Heights, Ohio and opened a hardware store.
In 1993, he was inducted into the Michigan Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. After his death in 2003, his papers were donated to the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, Ohio, where they are available to the serious scholar.